Personal Branding Podcast

“The size of your audience is more important than the size of your book” ― Bernard Kelvin Clive 17 Nuggets for Aspiring Authors Write from your heart Develop your own writing style, find your voice. Write daily, no matter the length, just write. Read books by other authors & experts. Read wide, read beyond your scope. Attend writing & publishing workshops! Learn more from your chosen field and from other authors Get feedback for your writings Review your writings. Don’t be afraid to repeat, repeat that which works. Hire a professional editor, a poorly written book doesn’t sell. Don’t compare yourself with other authors Be prepared for rejection, certainly, some wouldn’t like your works. Market your books from day one. Art is not CHEAP! Sell it! Invest in your book promotion. Paid ads work. Find your audience, build a tribe and write for them. Publish your book! It’s not about the size of your book, It’s about the substance in it! Your book may or may not make you a fortune but write & Publish it a

“He who has no goal goes no where” Your goals serves as your guiding light to your destination. In this episode we look at the Top 7 Resolutions you can consider for the coming year. Top 7 Resolutions to Consider  Learn a new SKILL Start a side business – moonlighting Travel to a village/a foreign land Volunteer to serve – community Keep a Journal/ Write a book Stay healthy – exercise, eat well, have regular medical check-ups Make a 360-day Challenge – Do something daily for the whole year. Eg. As an author, a challenge to write 300 words article every day. Download the infographic Recommended Books: Skills Every young Executive Must Have  HOOKED: Overcoming Social Media Addiction Rebrand: The Ultimate Guide to Personal Branding Branding Simplified  Books by Bernard Kelvin Clive

“Successful personal brands are agile” – Bernard Kelvin Clive 4 TRAITS of Powerful Personal Brands CLEAR PURPOSE Influential personal brands have a clear purpose, which is the most important pillar of powerful brands —for without purpose and a clear direction of your life, brand and business, you will be building a fake brand. The purpose should speak clearly to your promise of value. Your USP — Unique Selling Proposition.   INNOVATIVE Successful personal brands are agile, they are innovative and they are adaptable to change. They understand that brands and consumers do evolve so they adjust to the changing trends and times while staying relevant. “Innovation and technology drives my business” – Selorm A. Betepe  AUTHENTIC Influential personal brands understand that the best way to succeed is just being themselves. The world is tired of celebrities who ain’t themselves, they soon fade. Be your best self. “Remember it’s OK to be yourself.” – Richard Branson MAVERI

“Know your limit and circle of influence; you are not called to meet the needs of everyone” – Bernard Kelvin Clive In this episode I share with you reasons why most personal brands have poor digital presence and what must be done to fix it. 7 Reasons Why Your Digital Presence Sucks   You are trying so hard to impress people. (BE YOURSELF) You are on too many social media platforms, yet not active. (FOCUS) You don’t provide any value; less valuable content. ( CONTENT) You wear too many hats; obsessed with titles without substance. (INTEGRITY) Your bio(about you) is not well written, full of errors and no call to action. (CLARITY) You keep spamming and stalking. (PERMISSION MARKETING) You don’t have a website or a well branded social media page. (WEBSITES) Recommended Book: Skills Every young Executive Must Have  HOOKED: Overcoming Social Media Addiction Rebrand: The Ultimate Guide to Personal Branding Branding Simplified  Books by Bernard Kelvin Clive  

“You may start small but don’t stay small” – Bernard Kelvin Clive 21 Social Media and Digital Marketing Tips Don’t just be everywhere, be everywhere that your clients are, where you matter most. Always and always have a gift to give. Eg, Whitepapers, ebooks, audio, infographics etc. You can’t just ignore Social media – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc Blogs and Websites are still relevant for business growth. Traffic is the golden key that gets you the cash. Get yourself a mailing list. The Free lunch is over. You must pay to get the desired traction. Crowd-funding works effectively when you already have a mailing list, a tribe. Invest in paid advertisement. Don’t just be selling be connecting. You can’t’ Spam your way to success. Content is not king – relevant, timely and authentic content is king Invest in your personal brand – people buy into people first before business. Without value, the hype will be in vain. There are no shortcuts. Remember that what worked today may not work t

Are you Skilled? A skill is basically the ability to do something well, to be great at doing something. My question is what are you great at or what are the things that you want to be great at doing? A research conducted and published by LinkedIn in October this year, outlined the top 10 in-demand Skills for the coming year and beyond. Catherine Fisher, the researcher, stated that “While some skills expire every couple of years, our data strongly suggests that tech skills will still be needed for years to come, in every industry. Now is a great time for professionals to acquire the skills they need to be more marketable.” I believe this is the more reason for young executives to get more skills while they can to always stay on top so as not to be drowned by the noise and competition. Find the hottest, most in-demand skills around the globe: Note that these are technical and computer related skills. Cloud and Distributed Computing Cloud computing, also known as on-demand computing, is a kind of Int

“Your ingenuity will remain dormant until it is provoked” – Bernard Kelvin Clive You are creative!  Creativity in simple terms implies the ability to create. Firstly, because we are creatures of the creator – God, who made us in His image and likeness. Simply, if our creator creates, then, we too can create. Every living thing produces after it kind. We are the God-kind. Secondly, our very own nature yearns for new things, the explorer in us makes us want to experiment new things; that is the seed of creativity. It is those who pay attention to this urge and constantly respond by acting that unleashes the creative genius in them. If you believe it, then act on it! Watch your creative self & sense at work in whatever area you choose to to let it flow. The power is in your hands. You are creative! Your ingenuity unveils your identity. Go create! Resources: HOOKED: Overcoming Social Media Addiction Rebrand: The Ultimate Guide to Personal Branding Branding Simplified  Books by Bernard

How to make your first million… “People have this stereotypical view that wealthy people should be glamorous. The glamour aspect doesn’t grab me. I’ve always believed that wealth isn’t just about what you can buy. Wealth is a like a four-legged table. The monetary aspect is just one leg. The other quadrant legs include emotional wealth, spiritual wealth and physical wealth. Real wealth is having an abundance of ideas and a strong belief system which underpins everything you do in life.” – Nik Halik In this episode, I interviewed multi-millionaire astronaut and international speaker Nik Halik Nik Halik is the founder and CEO of Financial Freedom Institute, Lifestyle Revolution, 5 Day Weekend and The Thrillionaires. He is a financial trainer with a passion for adventure. This latter interest has led him during the past decade to train as a cosmonaut in Russia, fly close to the edge of the atmosphere in a former Soviet Mig 29 fighter jet, travel to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean to view the Titanic, tour

Secrets to becoming a bestseller with the Jedi of Amazon Kindle publishing, Dave Chesson. In this episode, I interviewed Dave Chesson of Kindlepreneur.com as he shared insights into kindle book publishing. Listen , learn and share Resources: Kindlepreneur.com KDP Rocket Amazon Sales Rank Calculator HOOKED: Overcoming Social Media Addiction Rebrand: The Ultimate Guide to Personal Branding Branding Simplified  Books by Bernard Kelvin Clive

“Speed is significant but you need substance to stay relevant” – Bernard Kelvin Clive In this podcast episode, I interviewed one of South Africa’s personal branding experts to share on the steps to building a personal brand. Joe Joseph Mudau (MBA) is a Director of REDEFINE BRANDS (Pty) Ltd., a company specializing in personal and company branding. He is an author, radio personality, professional conference, businessman and community builder. Listen and learn RECOMMENDED BOOK: HOOKED: Overcoming Social Media Addiction Rebrand: The Ultimate Guide to Personal Branding Branding Simplified 

Creating an Unforgettable Brand with Rochelle Moulton This episode is an interview on ways to build an unforgettable brand with my guest Rochelle Moulton Her style is clean (as in clean lines), feminine, and confident.  Listen, learn and apply. Her clients feel smart, LA chic, feminine, and confident in her clothing.    RECOMMENDED BOOK: HOOKED: Overcoming Social Media Addiction Rebrand: The Ultimate Guide to Personal Branding Rochelle Moulton is the founder of Be Unforgettable Media.  She makes consultants, authors, and artists unforgettable by focusing on what’s unique and real and authentic about them. Rochelle shows her audience, that by embracing who they are, they will win clients, readers and business.

Signs of Social Media addiction. RECOMMENDED BOOK: HOOKED: Overcoming Social Media Addiction Rebrand: The Ultimate Guide to Personal Branding

Social Media Branding  “Branding is not just about social media” – Bernard Kelvin Clive In a social media-driven world, it’s quite easy to assume that everything is about social media. This has made people believe all sorts of things that should not have been believed in the first place. In reference to branding, a number of books and articles online have skewed branding towards social media, more especially the subject to do with ‘personal branding’ – instructing readers on setting up social media accounts, and making them visible, yadda yadda… I addressed that in my book “The Art of Personal Branding”. The truth is this; social media can be used by individuals and companies to virtually promote their brands. But when the subject of branding is almost replaced with social media activities, that becomes a problem. Because it will mostly lack the depth of branding. Social media shouldn’t be the starting place; It is only a Channel that individuals and brands can utilize to establish and promote their bus

How do you stand out from the masses? “Brands that stand out from the competition are purposefully disruptive or different”  –  Bernard Kelvin Clive To stand out from the masses with your brand be disruptive, different, or you die. Over the years I realized that startup brands that are doing exceptionally well had in a way mastered what I call the D.I.C.E. strategy in branding. They are Different Innovative Creative Excellent They D.I.C.E on purpose; doing things differently from their competitors, with distinctiveness, innovation, and creativity with a hallmark of excellence. These are the things that propel brands to great heights of visibility and prominence. To put all this together in a proper perspective I selected 7 Startup Brands Doing Things differently that you can study and be inspired by their works. Here are some Ghanaian owned Startup Brand’s that differentiate their products and services from the masses, using creative and innovative ways, in their various markets. My Pick for this week:

#16 of 31 “Feedback are brands free assessment tool” – Bernard Kelvin Clive The fastest way to look back in retrospect and assess your brand’s performance is to get feedback from your clients. Feedbacks are a great way to evaluate your brand. The truth bitterly spoken is this, not all feedbacks will be encouraging and empowering, some will come as a shock to rebuke and correct you. Learn to take all in good faith. It’s what you do with those feedbacks that matter. Some brands have successfully used feedback from their customers to launch a new line of products, improve existing once and made the whole brand experience a wonderful one. It’s a continuous cycle that must be kept running. For startup brands, feedback is a great way to help you launch your products and services successfully. Here are few ways to gather customer feedbacks: Ask for feedback, in your store, office, workplace, encourage clients to give you feedbacks Provide means of feedback, eg. Online, have a feedback form on your site. Use emails,

“The investment you make into a brand, makes its name worth it” – Bernard Kelvin Clive Did you know that the famous brand name ‘Google’ was actually a misspelt word ‘Googol”? Now, let’s get started. It sounds good in the ear to have sweet brand names that rhymes and charms but that alone will not make your brand jive. Some few thoughts to debunk; in choosing brand names, some experts suggest having a name that can be pronounced easily, really? Not so much of that, it does some good anyway, but the point is if your brand name isn’t jaw-breaking but your brand doesn’t deliver on its promise you will fail. Let’s throw in some few examples, illustrate the point that the investments made into brands go beyond its name. Having a fairly easy relatable brand name for your products and services is great but most importantly focus on delivering on your brand promise. That will cause the name to rise above the crowd. Who would have thought that an automobile brand like ‘Mitsubishi’ can make it at the marketplace.

“Brands are not logos…” – Bernard Kelvin Clive Your Brand is more than just a creative name, cute logo or a complimentary card; it’s a promise of value, it’s a distinctive voice, it’ s a core message, it’s passion driven by purpose, it’s a positive impact that creates an impression One cannot talk about brands without reference to logos, however, a brand is more than just a logo. Some people mistakenly assume that a brand is its logo, no; a logo is a part of a brand’s identity. Here are some misconceptions about logos: A logo must be sophisticated; huh, a logo should be complex, that’s laughable, in fact, the simpler the better. A logo must reflect what the company does; huh, a logo should communicate the brand That is, not what the company does. A logo must have less colours; two colours should be enough. Huh, here again, a logo is not about being colorful or not. It focuses on how you choose to market your brand. A logo must either have symbols or name of the company in a text; huh,

Personal Branding and Career Building talk with Career Strategist Sherri Thomas Listen, learn and share this podcast interview I had with Sherri Thomas, Sherri Thomas is a Career Strategist, international speaker, award-winning author, and President of Career Coaching 360 (www.CareerCoaching360.com). She’s helped thousands of executives and professionals change, re-brand, advance and take their career in a whole new direction. Author of award-winning book, “The Bounce Back – personal stories and strategies to you help you bounce back higher and faster after a layoff, re-org or career setback” was named 2013 best career book by Indie Book Awards. Also, author of “Career Smart – 5 Steps to a Powerful Personal Brand”. Sherri is a champion of helping others thrive and live in their best career. AS a keynote speaker, she’s spoken at conferences and events around the world including the United States, Malaysia, Israel, Ireland, Singapore, Canada, Mexico and Vietnam. H

“An undiscovered genius has no value in the marketplace” ~ Bernard Kelvin Clive 5 Quick Ways to Self-Promote without being boastful.  With the above quote, we can get started. I believe you will agree with me that we all know one or two people who are so great at what they do, but are not known, or do not get the traction for their expertise as it should be, right? The point is that we are in an age where if you don’t show up consistently to let the world know what you have and the value you have to offer, you and your business may suffer from the competition. It requires that you promote yourself to the right audience, by letting them know what you do excellently. The challenge is that most people find it quite difficult to do this. Either they lack the confidence or have the fear of being labeled as proud. So, here are simple tips to enable you to promote yourself without being boastful: The first step is to be really great at what you do. Without that you will be only, deceiving yourself and the public, yo

7 Ways to Help a Complaining Customer into a Complimenting Customer   Listen “To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation. ” – Francois de La Rochefoucauld Respect “For us, our most important stakeholder is not our stockholders, it is our customers. We’re in business to serve the needs and desires of our core customer base.” ~ John Mackey Trust “To keep a customer demands as much skill as to win one.” -American Proverb Reward “Customers may forget what you said but they’ll never forget how you made them feel. “ Deliver “Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.” ~ Donald Porter Irresistible offers “Here is a simple but powerful rule: always give people more than what they expect to get.” ~ Nelson Boswell Relationships “In the world of Internet Customer Service, it’s important to remember your competitor is only one mouse click away. “ ~ Doug